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Puts C150 Down On Road Outside Victorville, CA

What was supposed to be a short hop
from Mojave, CA to Palm Springs for world record-setting aviator
Dick Rutan this week, instead turned into a dead-stick landing on a
small road near Victorville.

Rutan told The Associated Press he was flying his Cessna 150M
(similar to type shown below) to attend the memorial service for
his friend Robert Pond Tuesday morning,
when his plane suffered engine problems shortly after takeoff.

The C150 was about 1,000 feet above ground level when the
engine quit, forcing Rutan to put it down on a road eight miles
from the Victorville Airport.

"It was sudden, catastrophic, and inexplicable," Rutan told the
AP. "This was a major incident. If I had been over the clouds and
had to land on a mountain, my chance of surviving would probably
have been zero."

Rutan said the aircraft's engine suffered catastrophic
failure.

The emergency landing marks the fourth accident Rutan has
experienced in an aircraft. His F-100 was shot down by enemy fire
over Vietnam, forcing Rutan to eject. In January 1998, Rutan and
co-pilot Dave Melton had to bail out of the Global Hilton balloon,
when a helium cell ruptured during the non-stop round-the-world
attempt.

Two years later, Rutan and several others had to make a quick
escape from a plane that landed on thin ice, and sank on the North
Pole. They then had to endure over 12 hours in the cold before
being rescued.

Rutan is best known, though, for a flight that had a much better
ending. In 1986, Rutan and fellow pilot Jeana Yeager made the first
non-stop flight around the world in the long-legged -- and
longer-winged -- Voyager aircraft, designed by brother Burt
Rutan.

ANN is heartened to hear Rutan escaped this latest incident
without serious injury.